99 Souls to Go
by Willowred
Summary: A one shot set during the bar scene in DMC as Gibbs struggles to recruit the 99 souls needed for Davy Jones and the reappearance of James Norrington


**Disclaimer: Don't own POTC, and most of the dialogue below is owned by Ted and Terry, bless em. **

**Just a random thought about the Tortuga scene in DMC. Set bang in the middle of the movie, written for fun. **

**99 Souls to Go**

James Norrington was drunk. Again. As he looked vaguely around the Tortuga tavern, he realised he couldn't remember how long he had been sitting there in the first place. His dark hair hung limply around his unshaven face and shoulders but he had his once white, elegant wig still balanced on top of his head. Most of it was loose and untidy, with dirt, dust and goodness knows what else festering away in it. His hat sat on top of the whole mess at an angle. James knew how ridiculous this must look, but he could not bring himself to remove what was left of the wig. Without that wig, he was just common old James Norrington, washed up ex Commodore of the Royal Navy.

Oh how the mighty had fallen. He tapped his bottle on the table top and smirked at the injustice of it all. Exactly how long James had been on the island he couldn't honestly say. Most of the time had passed in a drunken haze with the occasional fight to break up the boredom. He had thought of joining some buccaneer crew and sailing away somewhere. He couldn't go back to Port Royal as rumours had reached him that Lord Beckett had a warrant for his arrest for assisting in the escape of Jack Sparrow. How ironic that was. Of all the things James Norrington despised, pirates were at the top of his list. And yet here he was, his commission gone, his crew gone, his entire life gone and the only option left to him now was to become pirate and forever avoid arrest and no doubt, the gallows.

Yet James's honour remained intact and it was for this reason alone that he was still on the island of Tortuga and had not yet brought himself to move on. He drank to try and cope, to come to terms with the sorry state of affairs he now found himself in. He drank to forget. God, he needed to forget. His fiancé had moved on, her heart lay with another and this was the biggest blow to James. He could have coped with anything if he had a fine woman like Elizabeth Swann at his side.

James stared as he caught sight of two men across the way from him. One he recognised instantly as Jack Sparrow, the so called Captain of the Black Pearl. He wasn't looking so cocky today James noticed, as he slid into a chair, flung his leg up on the table and proceeded to shake something in his hand. What on earth was Jack Sparrow doing here? James shook his head, took another swig of rum and looked again in case it was some sort of optical illusion. No, definitely not.

Well well well. James Norrington had chased that man and his crew for a long time and lost them as he commanded his ship through a hurricane. And here Jack Sparrow was, right there for all to see, right in front of him. Oh the irony of it all.

Jack wasn't the only one feeling sullied and unusual.

Joshamee Gibbs was feeling a bit unusual himself. Things were taking a very strange turn indeed and now they had exactly three days to find ninety nine souls to hand over to Davy Jones. Ninety nine souls! Not an easy task, but Jack had been right – if there was one place to recruit such a large number it was Tortuga. It was an odd thing to be sitting at a table, recruiting innocent men to sentence to such a terrible fate, but still, better them than Jack himself Gibbs figured. Better them than Jack deciding to sacrifice half of his crew, God forbid, whose number had dwindled significantly since the whole Pelagostos incident anyway. This was a team effort to save the Captain from being shangahi'd into Jones' crew, or worse, being hunted and dragged down to the depths by the Kracken itself. Although, now they had arrived at Tortuga Jack had taken to sitting at a nearby table alone, near enough to watch over proceedings but it was made very clear to Mr Gibbs that he was to interview and sign up the men. It was probably for the best – Jack was distracted and seemed ill prepared to stay on task.

And they were daft, no doubt about that – the men approaching the table and signing the roster, such as it was, were daft to boot. The first man to come over had the look of the cursed undead himself, old as he was. He claimed he needed to get out and see the world, "while he was still young." Indeed. The second had spent the last month drunk as his lady had left him. Gibbs had thoughts he would probably need a lot more rum that he had currently to cope with what he had coming to him on board the Flying Dutchman but he kept this to himself. The third only had one arm and, as he explained sadly to Gibbs, a "bum" leg.

"It's the crow's nest for you," Gibbs offered kindly and waved towards the roster for the man to make his mark.

The fourth man was older again and weathered, but probably no older than Gibbs himself although not as fit. It was apparently his dream to serve at sea forever.

"Sooner than you think," thought Gibbs, then realised he had said it out loud. The man made his mark on the roster, seemingly not noticing anything amiss.

There was a lull in the queue and Gibbs rested his head on his hand for a moment. Jack, seated nearby, staring intently at his compass and muttering to himself, looked over.

"How we going?" he asked.

Gibbs sighed. "Including those four? That makes – four," he said. No point in trying to dress it up any. Jack didn't seem overly concerned however. He looked back down at his compass and shook the blasted thing, muttering to himself again.

Gibbs looked up hopefully as another potential victim approached the table. He smiled, his patience beginning to wear a little thin now, and looked up into the man's face.

"And what's your story?"

The man, his face partly hidden by shadow and a terribly ill fitting wig which looked as though it was falling apart and had definitely seen better days, took a swig from a bottle of rum he was carrying.

"My story?" he replied, "It's exactly the same as your story, just one chapter behind. I chased a man across the seven seas. The pursuit cost me my crew, my commission and my life." He leaned over the desk towards Gibbs and with a slow realisation, Gibbs eyes widened as he recognised the deep voice and the tale the man was telling. Jack frowned as he overheard the exchange and slowly looked over towards the two men. The voice was familiar to him too and as he saw who was standing before his friend, he slowly leaned back and casually began to pull a pot plant in front of him to try and hide.

"Commadore?" Gibbs exclaimed in horror.

"No not anymore, weren't you listening?" Ex Commadore Norrington took another swig and continued to lean on the table. Was it an attempt of intimidation on his part or did he need the table for support as the man had clearly drunk a lot of rum? Gibbs couldn't tell. He leaned in a little further and lowered his voice, which was shaking with anger and emotion. "I nearly had you all off Tripoli," he breathed, "I would have……. If not for the hurricane."

Gibbs stared into Norrington's face in disbelief. "Lord! You didn't try to sail through it?" As he looked into Norrington's eyes, he knew. He had indeed tried to sail through the hurricane and it was this that had cost him his crew's lives.

Norrington winced and tilted his head, studying Gibbs carefully. "So do I make your crew or not?" he enquired, "You haven't said where your going." Norrington's patience seemed to end and he suddenly flipped the table over in anger, "Somewhere NICE?" he yelled.

Norrington laughed to himself and paced the floor, making wide circle motions with his arms. The music had stopped and everyone in the bar was staring at him. But anger and drunkenness had taken over and James Norrington realised that he no longer cared. About anything.

"So am I worthy to sail under Captain Jack Sparrow?" he shouted, as if making an important speech. He suddenly turned, his navy training kicking in and pointed his pistol at Jack himself, who was trying to make a sneaky exit from behind the large branch of a plant. Jack grinned at him, as if seeing him for the very first time and ducked behind a nearby pillar. As much as it hurt James's eyes to stay focussed, he followed Jack with his pistol and didn't let his aim drop for a second.

"Or should I just kill you now?"

Jack gestured James wildly with his hands. "Your hired," he exclaimed.

Norrington smiled but still he kept aim. "Sorry," he said, "Old habits and all that."

James didn't see a man approach him from behind and he was easily overpowered, as he finally lost his aim and his gun went off towards the roof.

Commadore Norrington could have easily overpowered any one of a number of men on his own in the old days. But now, he found himself in the unenviable position of being outdone by a number of drunken men who had no military training whatsoever and to add insult to injury, had probably consumed far more rum than he had.

And a few moments later, when he came to in the pigsty behind the tavern, James Norrington thought again about how ironic life was. And then he heard it. The voice of an angel.

"James Norrington. What has the world done to you?"

THE END


End file.
